A short note
in Turkish about the English translation // Başlamadan: Veysi Polat'ın 17 Mart 2016
tarihinde T24'te yayınlanan köşe yazısını okuduğumda bu yazının acilen
uluslararası okuyucuyla paylaşılmasının gerektiğini düşündüm. Heval Veysi'ye
bir mail atıp kendisini bu eylemimden haberdar ederek, yazıyı çalışma arkadaşım
Şengül Ertürk'ün editoryal desteğiyle İngilizceye çevirdim. Her hafta okuduğum
bu tür köşe yazılarından, mutlaka en az birini, İngilizceye çevirip içinde
bulunduğumuz duruma elimden geldiğince ses vermeye devam edeceğim.
An ancient city underfoot...[1]
Veysi Polat [2]
For the last four months, Diyarbakır’s main agenda has been all about conflicts,
deaths and migration… Some time ago, when I was going to visit one of the Sur
victims -a parrot named “Heval”, [3] about which I wrote an article to T24- an
academic from Dicle University told me; “Come and see the real drama in the
area where scraps are taken from Sur [4]. I go there every day and I cry…” Two
days later, having these impressions stuck in my throat, my director friend Ruhi
Karadağ, Journalist Nevzat Bingöl and I hit the road.
Since
conflicts and curfew in Sur jumped in the city center, namely Bağlar district,
Diyarbakır’s traffic jam resembles of the one in Istanbul. As the shortcut was
closed, we reach the Faculty by taking a devious route around Seyrantepe
district… We become a part of the convoy of DSI/State Hydraulic Works’
trucks continuously carrying scraps to the empty area that belongs to Dicle
University… We as well reach the same area through the campus…
Around 20 people, mostly kids, load a truck with iron
pieces they dug up from the excavations. Some hold a pot, some hold a propane
cylinder, and some hold steel bars removed from concrete columns… First, an
uneasiness; sayings like “Don’t take our photos, you’ll take the bread out of
our mouths” come one after the other.
A photo album appears under the feet of a boy who
collects wastes in return to 20 Turkish Lira a day. There are no names, neither
on the album nor at the back of the photo prints. A groom stands next to the
bride, a few frames from soldiery times, a large family photo with kids…
Lentil grains, tea, sugar and potatoes spread around
from a sack… A scrap dealer tells: “The other day we found two legs and a hand
of a person, we immediately delivered them to the police…”
Another one says, “Brother, I am not a scrap dealer. I
look for a historical artifact. Yesterday I found a ring and sold it for 1800
Turkish Lira”…
Not only the scrap dealers, but also Sur victims come
here too with a hope to find a piece from their house… It is said that all of
them cry when they come here… They just go back… For example, the other day a
young person came to find a letter from his lover… He sat down and cried for
hours… Couldn’t find the letter and left the place…
A column appears among the scraps. Sur was part
of the World Heritage, now shows up itself in the waste yard…
Known as one of the world’s oldest artifact with a
past of 9 thousand years and last year selected to the “World Cultural Heritage
List” by UNESCO, the Diyarbakır Fortresses [5] that include 610 registered
artifacts, went to rack and ruin due to curfews and conflicts.
In fact, Diyarbakır is a lively historical and
cultural treasury carrying the traces of many civilizations existed in Anatolia
for thousands of years. Started in Çayönü in B.C. 7000 years and stayed alive
until modern days, many civilizations, which have important roles not only in
the region’s but also in the world’s history, left valuable artifacts in this
region.
Now those
artifacts are buried in an area that used to be a sand quarry in Diyarbakır.
While world archeologists dig deeper and deeper to bring historical heritages
to light, the contrary happens in our region… As we leave the place, where many
of our childhood memories are buried, our tears fall down on the land which is
covered by scraps. We realize, under the huge areas we stepped on, the
Fortresses are buried and bulldozers build roads on them…
[1] Original
article, Ayaklar altında kadim bir kent… , published
at T24 online newspaper on March 17th, 2016. Translated into English by an
anonymous person, who volunteered to disseminate the article to international
audience.
[2] Documentarist, journalist and a
writer at T24. Follow him at Twitter: https://twitter.com/veysiipolat?lang=tr
[3] “Heval” means friend, companion
in Kurdish. The article: http://t24.com.tr/haber/sur-magduru-papagan-artik-sadece-bomm-diyor,331704
[4] Sur is the district including
the Fortresses, which is “sur” in Turkish.
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